How many shuttlecraft did the Enterprise have?
- Thread starter JonnyQuest037
- Start date
It's possible to fit seven 24' shuttles in the Enterprise (4 on the hangar deck and 3 on the flight deck) and still be able to maintain flight operations.
Each starship might have a different shuttle load out depending on mission and/or circumstances. In "The Galileo Seven", the Enterprise only deployed the Galileo and the Copernicus - suggesting only two shuttles on board (and a whole lot of medicine.) The Exeter had only four in "Omega Glory" and the Enterprise might have had none in "The Enemy Within" but returned to seven for other missions.
Each starship might have a different shuttle load out depending on mission and/or circumstances. In "The Galileo Seven", the Enterprise only deployed the Galileo and the Copernicus - suggesting only two shuttles on board (and a whole lot of medicine.) The Exeter had only four in "Omega Glory" and the Enterprise might have had none in "The Enemy Within" but returned to seven for other missions.
"The Galileo Seven" showed us the Galileo and the Columbus.
Realistically the flight deck can't be crammed with shuttlecraft or it becomes very unwieldy. It's also possible Kirk didn't want to risk dispatching more than one shuttlecraft to search the planet surface for the Galileo seeing all the difficulties they were having. Only seeing two doesn't automatically mean there are only two.
I still favour a complement of four shuttlecraft and assorted workpods. It seems more varied and believable.
In "Enemy Within" we learned an Enterprise without any shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter the landing party is damned. In Star Trek V we learned an Enterprise with shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter again is not much better. They always need both options available for landing party away teams, including the multiple shuttlecrafts.
In "The Enemy Within" we don't know anything about the shuttlecraft. The real world fact was that no shuttlecraft mockups or miniatures had been built yet so they didn't mention anything and they didn't think to toss in a reference as to why a shuttlecraft wasn't employed to rescue Sulu and company.In "Enemy Within" we learned an Enterprise without any shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter the landing party is damned. In Star Trek V we learned an Enterprise with shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter again is not much better. They always need both options available for landing party away teams, including the multiple shuttlecrafts.
If I had been doing TOS-R I'd have thrown an image on the briefing room viewscreen conveying the idea that the hangar doors were under repair or something...for those who might notice such a thing.
Exactly.
It's not that unwieldy when you take into account the turntable elevator. More importantly though, this was an emergency and Kirk needed to find his people as soon as possible. If he had more shuttles on board he would've launched them, IMHO.
I don't have a problem with 7 shuttles assigned to the Enterprise and the actual number aboard varying depending on mission and circumstance. I mean, consider "Let That Be You Last Battlefield"... Starbase Four is -1 shuttle because it was stolen and now the Enterprise has it for the episode (or even longer depending on when she can visit the Starbase.) So Enterprise has one more than her normal load and the Starbase one less. Or ditto with Starbase Eleven. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that some shuttles from the Enterprise being offloaded for extra cargo space or lost due to damage and not replenished (for several episodes.)
Does anyone have an exact quote, transcribed from "The Omega Glory", about the Exeter's shuttlecraft compliment? That particular line of dialogue always had me scratching my head. If a Constitution-class starship only maintains a small shuttlecraft wing, then it never made sense to me to check the Hangar Deck for signs of a missing crew anyway; if there are only four shuttlecrafts on a starship, there would be no way a significant number of starship personnel could leave the ship via that avenue for any sustained warp-speed voyage.
I think CRA is onto something about the number of shuttlecraft. Maybe an operating fleet of four shuttlecrafts is standard, and shuttlecraft "kits" can be assembled from storage to either build additional ships or refurbish worn/damaged ones. The question then becomes where would the crew store the kits...
I think CRA is onto something about the number of shuttlecraft. Maybe an operating fleet of four shuttlecrafts is standard, and shuttlecraft "kits" can be assembled from storage to either build additional ships or refurbish worn/damaged ones. The question then becomes where would the crew store the kits...
The line of dialog is, "All four shuttlecraft are still in the hangar" or something like that. It clearly conveys the idea there were only four expected to be there and they were.
The transporter is meant to do most of the work in terms of personnel and cargo being offloaded or brought aboard. The shuttlecraft are not meant primarily as lifeboats, but to substitute for when transporter use is unavailable or ill-advised. The shuttlecraft also extend the Enterprise's capabilities for when she can't be in two places simultaneously such as a diplomatic courier, personnel and cargo transport or science survey of some sort.
The transporter is meant to do most of the work in terms of personnel and cargo being offloaded or brought aboard. The shuttlecraft are not meant primarily as lifeboats, but to substitute for when transporter use is unavailable or ill-advised. The shuttlecraft also extend the Enterprise's capabilities for when she can't be in two places simultaneously such as a diplomatic courier, personnel and cargo transport or science survey of some sort.
In "The Enemy Within" we don't know anything about the shuttlecraft. The real world fact was that no shuttlecraft mockups or miniatures had been built yet so they didn't mention anything and they didn't think to toss in a reference as to why a shuttlecraft wasn't employed to rescue Sulu and company.In "Enemy Within" we learned an Enterprise without any shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter the landing party is damned. In Star Trek V we learned an Enterprise with shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter again is not much better. They always need both options available for landing party away teams, including the multiple shuttlecrafts.
If I had been doing TOS-R I'd have thrown an image on the briefing room viewscreen conveying the idea that the hangar doors were under repair or something...for those who might notice such a thing.
You are correct, however in the canon of TOS we later know the shuttlecrafts exist even without explanation of why they were not mentioned or used. It is not as bad as the Lost In Space situation of it was not until the season three that the Jupiter 2 Spacepod is used.
Yep, and so were left with speculating why they weren't mentioned within the "reality" of the TOS universe onscreen.In "The Enemy Within" we don't know anything about the shuttlecraft. The real world fact was that no shuttlecraft mockups or miniatures had been built yet so they didn't mention anything and they didn't think to toss in a reference as to why a shuttlecraft wasn't employed to rescue Sulu and company.In "Enemy Within" we learned an Enterprise without any shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter the landing party is damned. In Star Trek V we learned an Enterprise with shuttlecrafts on board and a malfunctioning transporter again is not much better. They always need both options available for landing party away teams, including the multiple shuttlecrafts.
If I had been doing TOS-R I'd have thrown an image on the briefing room viewscreen conveying the idea that the hangar doors were under repair or something...for those who might notice such a thing.
You are correct, however in the canon of TOS we later know the shuttlecrafts exist even without explanation of why they were not mentioned or used.
Unlike Lost In Space, where the Spacepod was not created until it was mentioned in season three, the Star Trek TOS they knew the shuttlecraft was canon in the first season. You are right they should have just thrown in a line mentioning without any onscreen appearance in "Enemy Within".
We could assume that only two shuttles are kept in operational readiness at all times, and the other two (or four) are either partially or completly dismantled to save space? This could account for why, in the "Galileo 7" only one shuttle was sent out to search for the Galileo, and with all that medicine on board there may not have been enough room to assemble the others? Remember this is before the refit so there likely wasn't a huge cargo bay like the one in ST:TMP?
As for why shuttles were not used in "The Enemy Within", that's like asking why Kirk and company didn't just use a phaser to vaporize the door to engineering in "The Naked Time" and worry about replacing it later? Or why there wasn't some sort of manual overide to disengage the door mechanism in the first place! It's all about the drama of the moment and were not supposed to think of these things.
As for why shuttles were not used in "The Enemy Within", that's like asking why Kirk and company didn't just use a phaser to vaporize the door to engineering in "The Naked Time" and worry about replacing it later? Or why there wasn't some sort of manual overide to disengage the door mechanism in the first place! It's all about the drama of the moment and were not supposed to think of these things.
Last edited:
I guess I just would have liked a line in the script stating why there are no shuttlecrafts available in "Enemy Within" and then the episode would have played out the way it did with no shuttlecraft used.
I was discussing with others at the time of the Star Trek TOS-Remastered episodes that it would be fascinating if they added a voice-over mentioning no shuttlecrafts are available...maybe a Captain's Log to "Enemy Within"?
^^It's fun to speculate about such things, my own idea along those lines would be adding a TAS style life support belt force field around Scotty when he goes into the M/A-M entegrator in "That Which Survives". But at the end of the day, I don't think I really want them to tamper with stuff like that.
A lot of this stuff was hashed out over three separate loong threads when I was working out my version of the shuttlecraft. Inevitably there's no real right answer, but rather evidence to support different answers depending on your interpretation and intent. Different folks arrive at different conclusions.
For anyone who would like a recap on how this project got started (four years ago), progressed and evolved to its current stage go here: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=31724 and http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=50073 and http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=119088
For anyone who would like a recap on how this project got started (four years ago), progressed and evolved to its current stage go here: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=31724 and http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=50073 and http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=119088
Sadly, no. Real life and all.
But hopefully I can return to it in the foreseeable future. I'd really like to make "real world" versions of the TAS designs just to see how it would all come out.
Last edited:
Similar threads
